RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. — This past weekend’s historic, record breaking storm caused damage across the Sacramento region, including a softball training facility in Rancho Cordova.
The roof at HRT Softball Sports Facility collapsed Sunday night when heavy rain hit the region. The facility estimates tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment had been damaged or destroyed.
"It’s literally our blood sweat and tears," Bonita Allen, co-owner of HRT Sports and co-founder of PS33 Academy, said.
"One of the people that were at their building across the street said it sounded like a plane crashed into the building," Wes Archie, co-owner of HRT Sports and co-founder of PS33 Academy, added.
All teams that use the facility store their equipment there, as well. The HRT Sports Facility is home to PS33 Academy Softball league, also a rental space for other teams.
"We've lost all their equipment, balls, nets, the turf we laid in here," Allen said. "We really did this from the ground up with families that helped put everything in."
Both owners said they were relieved nobody was in the building when the collapse occurred.
"All I can say we were numb," Archie said. "Biggest thing, we were lucky nobody was in the building because we were supposed to practice later on that day and, you know, that would’ve just been a whole different story."
Maycen Gibbs, 19, played with PS33 for a year. She said the owners helped make connections with colleges and be successful.
For Gibbs and other young female athletes, HRT Sports was a space to have fun and focus on their game. Allen and Archie said their goal was to provide a safe space to empower girls and young women.
"We learned so much in there," Beija Allen, another PS33 softball player, said.
The owners said they will hold practices at outside fields while they wait to hear about the status of their building. They're also looking for a temporary facility to get through more rainy days.
"Insurance will decide if they want to rebuild," Allen said. "If they decide not to, they would then terminate our lease which would leave us displaced completely because then we would have no building or a home."
Either way, their goal is to rebuild their facility and they've started a fundraiser to replace the equipment they lost.
"Everybody else is going to be in this to help us get bigger and stronger and it's all going to go back to the girls, to make sure we do get bigger and stronger for them," Archie said.
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